Can the United States make a return to the surface of the moon? NASA and a private U.S. spaceflight company hope so. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.

Washington — The U.S. Justice Department said on Thursday it disrupted a Russian intelligence hacking network. "For the second time in two months, we've disrupted state-sponsored hackers from launching cyber-attacks behind the cover of compromised U.S. routers," U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a statement. The Justice Department said that a January 2024 court-authorized operation neutralized the network of hundreds of small office/home office (SOHO) routers controlled by Russian intelligence and used "to conceal and otherwise enable a variety of crimes."   "In this case, Russian intelligence services turned to criminal groups to help them target home and office routers, but the Justice Department disabled their scheme," Attorney General Merrick Garland added. Garland said the Justice Department was accelerating efforts to disrupt the Russian government's cyber campaigns against the United States and its partners, including Ukraine.

WASHINGTON — Last year, VPN usage in China nearly doubled, according to data from IT education news outlet Techopedia, this despite the country’s strict regime of internet controls of everything from overseas websites to online games. China’s “Great Firewall” is one of the world’s most comprehensive internet censorship regimes, preventing citizens from accessing websites like Instagram, Wikipedia and YouTube, as well most major news organizations including VOA. VPNs are outlawed in China because they allow users to jump the “Great Firewall” and securely connect to the internet outside the country while blocking their IP address. Rob Binns, a journalist with Techopedia, said China’s increasingly strict censorship policies may explain the rise in VPN usage there. “Looking at VPN usage versus what it’s combating, which is online censorship, we are seeing online censorship in a range of countries, particularly China, becoming more strategic and more surgical,” Binns told VOA in an interview.  In 2021, Chinese regulators limited teenagers’ access to video games to three hours per week — from 8 to 9 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays — before unveiling more severe restrictions last December which set spending limits on video game platforms and banned incentives for daily logins. Binns said these regulations on minors may particularly motivate Chinese usage of VPNs. “With that younger demographic, which is traditionally, extremely, highly tech-literate demographic, they're always going to be looking for ways to kind of circumvent that top-down pressure from governments and find ways to get around that,” Binns said. “And if that means turning to VPNs to circumvent that, then that’s certainly what we're seeing.” Analysts say VPNs empower Chinese internet users to discuss major political issues on the internet without facing governmental blowback. “Circumvention tools like VPNs can enable people in China to access the global internet, including spaces where they can express themselves freely without fear of censorship,” Kian Vesteinsson, a senior research analyst for technology and democracy at the nonprofit Freedom House, which advocates for political freedom, told VOA in an emailed response. “During unprecedented nationwide protests in late 2022, many Chinese people used VPNs to sidestep the Great Firewall and share their views on otherwise-inaccessible social media platforms.” Vesteinsson said access to a free, open internet potentially threatens the ruling Chinese Communist Party — hence the government’s crackdowns on internet usage. “Circumvention technology helped produce one of the most open challenges to CCP rule in decades,” Vesteinsson told VOA. “CCP authorities responded to the 2022 protests in part by scrubbing references to VPNs from the Chinese internet.” “People face severe consequences for using prohibited VPNs, particularly if they belong to a marginalized ethnic or religious minority or try to access content censored by the authorities,” Vesteinsson added. “The government even removes discussion of VPNs from China-based social media platforms, preventing people from learning about circumvention technology.” Analysts expect further crackdowns could lead either to additional upticks in VPN usage or a reluctance to use VPNs, depending on how China chooses to further enhance its censorship regime. “The exact nature of the crackdown, as well as accompanying measures are what decides which effects it is likely to have,” Antonia Hmaidi, a senior analyst at the Berlin-based think tank Mercator Institute for China Studies, told VOA in an email. “China has been so successful in managing its internet partly through making the Great Firewall work not only with fear, but also friction and flooding." Hmaidi adds that instead of cracking down, China could also slow the speed of all connections outside the country, which would make it more inconvenient to use VPNs, and maintain an approved list of fast connections for companies.

In an effort to connect to younger voters, the Biden campaign has joined TikTok. But while many users have welcomed the move, security experts and even legislators have expressed disapproval amid long-standing privacy concerns surrounding the use of the Chinese-owned app. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias has details from Washington. (Produced by: Veronica Balderas Iglesias)

A Kenyan government agency is helping students from low-income families access laboratories for science classes. The producer is making solar-powered mobile laboratories that are cheaper than building permanent facilities. Victoria Amunga reports from Nairobi. Camera: Jimmy Makhulo

Over 1.7 million electric cars are currently on the road in California. But drivers in the nation’s largest EV market say they are struggling to find chargers. VOA's Anna Rice narrates this report by Angelina Bagdasaryan. Video: Vazgen Varzhabetian

A California-based company backed by tech billionaires says it has discovered major copper deposits in Zambia using artificial intelligence. The discovery comes as demand for the metal is especially high for the global transition to cleaner energy sources. Kathy Short reports from Lusaka, Zambia. (Camera and produced by: Richard Kille)

washington — President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign Monday defended its new TikTok account as a vital way to boost its appeal with young voters, even as his administration continued to raise security concerns about whether the popular social media app might be sharing user data with China’s communist government. The campaign's inaugural post featured the president being quizzed on Sunday's Super Bowl — and included a reference to the latest political conspiracy theory centering on pop superstar Taylor Swift. “The president’s TikTok debut last night — with more than 5 million views and counting — is proof positive of both our commitment and success in finding new, innovative ways to reach voters in an evolving, fragmented and increasingly personalized media environment,” Biden reelection deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty said in a statement. At the White House, though, national security communications adviser John Kirby said that “there are still national security concerns about the use of TikTok on government devices, and there’s been no change to our policy not to allow that.” Kirby referred most questions about TikTok to the Biden campaign and ducked a more general query about whether it was wise to use the app at all. He said the potential security issues "have to do with concerns about the preservation of data and potential misuse of that data and privacy information by foreign actors.” Both the FBI and the Federal Communications Commission have warned that TikTok's Chinese owner, ByteDance, could share user data — such as browsing history, location and biometric identifiers — with that country's authoritarian government. Biden in 2022 signed legislation banning the use of TikTok by the federal government’s nearly 4 million employees on devices owned by its agencies, with limited exceptions for law enforcement, national security and security research purposes. Separately, the secretive and powerful Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States has been reviewing the app for years while trying unsuccessfully to force TikTok ownership to divest from its parent company. The White House said Monday the review was continuing. With 150 million U.S. users, TikTok is best known for quick snippets of viral dance routines. But Senator Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, posted on X that Biden’s campaign is “bragging about using a Chinese spy app even though Biden signed a law banning it on all federal devices.” The Biden campaign said it had been mulling establishing a TikTok account for months and had ultimately done so at the urging of youth activists and organizations, who argued that the app was key to reaching young voters. The campaign said it was using a separate cellphone to engage on TikTok to isolate the app from other work streams and communications, including emails. The campaign said it was taking additional steps but declined to name them, citing security concerns. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said she wasn't in contact with the campaign and had no advance warning that its TikTok account was going live.

The University of the People, a tuition-free online university, was founded in 2009 and accredited in 2014. The game-changing goal of the U.S. nonprofit is to make education accessible to some 140,000 students from 200 countries. Maxim Adams has the story. Video: Dana Preobrazhenskaya.

A test of ChatGPT's capabilities to create false information finds the chatbot spreads more disinformation in Chinese, says media watchdog NewsGuard. VOA's Robin Guess has more. VOA footage by Michael Eckels, Roy Kim.

Two titans of space travel team up to study our planet's health. Plus, a Russian cosmonaut breaks the record for the most time in space, and sky gazers in North America will get a treat in coming months. VOA's Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.

Four billion people worldwide have voted or are scheduled to do so in national elections through 2024. While the candidates and issues differ in each country, one common concern is the use of generative artificial intelligence in disinformation campaigns. VOA’s Valdya Baraputri has the story.

NEW YORK — An oversight board is criticizing Facebook owner Meta's policies regarding manipulated media as "incoherent" and insufficient to address the flood of online disinformation that already has begun to target elections across the globe this year.  The quasi-independent board on Monday said its review of an altered video of President Joe Biden that spread on Facebook exposed gaps in the policy. The board said Meta should expand the policy to focus not only on videos generated with artificial intelligence, but on media regardless of how it was created. That includes fake audio recordings, which already have convincingly impersonated political candidates in the U.S. and elsewhere.  It also said Meta should clarify the harm it is trying to prevent and should label images, videos and audio clips as manipulated instead of removing the posts altogether.  The board's feedback reflects the intense scrutiny that is facing many tech companies for their handling of election falsehoods in a year when voters in more than 50 countries will go to the polls. As both generative artificial intelligence deepfakes and lower-quality "cheap fakes" on social media threaten to mislead voters, the platforms are trying to catch up and respond to false posts while protecting users' rights to free speech.  "As it stands, the policy makes little sense," oversight board co-chair Michael McConnell said of Meta's policy in a statement on Monday. He said the company should close gaps in the policy while ensuring political speech is "unwaveringly protected."  Meta said it is reviewing the oversight board's guidance and will respond publicly to the recommendations within 60 days.  Spokesperson Corey Chambliss said while audio deepfakes aren't mentioned in the company's manipulated media policy, they are eligible to be fact-checked and will be labeled or down-ranked if fact-checkers rate them as false or altered. The company also takes action against any type of content if it violates Facebook's Community Standards, he said.  Facebook, which turned 20 this week, remains the most popular social media site for Americans to get their news, according to Pew. But other social media sites, among them Meta's Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads, as well as X, YouTube and TikTok, also are potential hubs where deceptive media can spread and fool voters.  Meta created its oversight board in 2020 to serve as a referee for content on its platforms. Its current recommendations come after it reviewed an altered clip of Biden and his adult granddaughter that was misleading but didn't violate the company's policies because it didn't misrepresent anything he said.  The original footage showed Biden placing an "I Voted" sticker high on his granddaughter's chest, at her instruction, then kissing her on the cheek. The version that appeared on Facebook was altered to remove the important context, making it seem as if he touched her inappropriately.  The board's ruling on Monday upheld Meta's 2023 decision to leave the seven-second clip up on Facebook, since it didn't violate the company's existing manipulated media policy. Meta's current policy says it will remove videos created using artificial intelligence tools that misrepresent someone's speech.  "Since the video in this post was not altered using AI and it shows President Biden doing something he did not do (not something he didn't say), it does not violate the existing policy," the ruling read.  The board advised the company to update the policy and label similar videos as manipulated in the future. It argued that to protect users' rights to freedom of expression, Meta should label content as manipulated rather than removing it from the platform if it doesn't violate any other policies.  The board also noted that some forms of manipulated media are made for humor, parody or satire and should be protected. Instead of focusing on how a distorted image, video or audio clip was created, the company's policy should focus on the harm manipulated posts can cause, such as disrupting the election process, the ruling said.  Meta said on its website that it welcomes the Oversight Board's ruling on the Biden post and will update the post after reviewing the board's recommendations.  Meta is required to heed the oversight board's rulings on specific content decisions, though it's under no obligation to follow the board's broader recommendations. Still, the board has gotten the company to make some changes over the years, including making messages to users who violate its policies more specific to explain to them what they did wrong.  Jen Golbeck, a professor in the University of Maryland's College of Information Studies, said Meta is big enough to be a leader in labeling manipulated content, but follow-through is just as important as changing policy.  "Will they implement those changes and then enforce them in the face of political pressure from the people who want to do bad things? That's the real question," she said. "If they do make those changes and don't enforce them, it kind of further contributes to this destruction of trust that comes with misinformation." 

Hong Kong — Scammers tricked a multinational firm out of some $26 million by impersonating senior executives using deepfake technology, Hong Kong police said Sunday, in one of the first cases of its kind in the city. Law enforcement agencies are scrambling to keep up with generative artificial intelligence, which experts say holds potential for disinformation and misuse — such as deepfake images showing people mouthing things they never said. A company employee in the Chinese finance hub received "video conference calls from someone posing as senior officers of the company requesting to transfer money to designated bank accounts," police told AFP. Police received a report of the incident on January 29, at which point some HK$200 million ($26 million) had already been lost via 15 transfers. "Investigations are still ongoing and no arrest has been made so far," police said, without disclosing the company's name. The victim was working in the finance department, and the scammers pretended to be the firm's U.K.-based chief financial officer, according to Hong Kong media reports. Acting Senior Superintendent Baron Chan said the video conference call involved multiple participants, but all except the victim were impersonated. "Scammers found publicly available video and audio of the impersonation targets via YouTube, then used deepfake technology to emulate their voices... to lure the victim to follow their instructions," Chan told reporters. The deepfake videos were pre-recorded and did not involve dialogue or interaction with the victim, he added.

BEIJING — A small but powerful Chinese rocket capable of carrying payloads at competitive costs delivered nine satellites into orbit Saturday, Chinese state media reported, in what is gearing up to be another busy year for Chinese commercial launches.  The Jielong-3, or Smart Dragon-3, blasted off from a floating barge off the coast of Yangjiang in southern Guangdong province, the second launch of the rocket in just two months.  Developed by China Rocket Company, a commercial offshoot of a state-owned launch vehicle manufacturer, Jielong-3 made its first flight in December 2022.  President Xi Jinping has called for the expansion of strategic industries including the commercial space sector, deemed key to building constellations of satellites for communications, remote sensing and navigation.  Also Saturday, Chinese automaker Geely Holding Group launched 11 satellites to boost its capacity to provide more accurate navigation for autonomous vehicles.  Last year saw 17 Chinese commercial launches with one failure, among a record 67 orbital launches by China. That was up from 10 Chinese commercial launches in 2022, including two failures.  In 2023, China conducted more launches than any other country except for the United States, which made 116 launch attempts, including just under 100 by Elon Musk's SpaceX.  Critical to the construction of commercial satellite networks is China's ability to open more launch windows, expand rocket types to accommodate different payload sizes, lower launch costs and increase the number of launch sites.